WALK UP MUSIC

Ludwig van Beethoven: "Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend."

I've been driving some major initiatives and having to do a bunch of organizational convincing at work lately. It reminds me of marketing and selling my books. It’s a struggle. And if I’m being honest, I don’t enjoy it. People want something. I’m passionate about something else. And we have to navigate that terrain together. The work of persuasion is full of subtleties. But before going further, let me clarify something: this would all be easier if I was selling something with an obvious benefit, like pleasure or escape or comfort or Coca-Cola. But what I’m selling is convoluted. So convoluted, in fact, that simple descriptions typically create more confusion. For sure it cannot be reduced to crafty conventional pieties, catchy slogans, inspirational quotes, fifteen-second TikTok videos, or a thirty-second elevator pitch, at least not without slipping into sheer and utter bullshit.

So my first problem is this initial perceived value. What I’m offering requires a significant investment of time before its benefits can even be understood, let alone felt. This isn’t “believe in me for eternal salvation.” It’s closer to: “Are you ready to put in the work for your freedom?” And not the superficial “freedom to choose” we like to celebrate and all understand. And not even the David Goggins, “get up you bitch and work out and take control of your life” kind of freedom. These kinds of freedom are often illusory, shaped by history, by culture, by invisible social pressures and subliminal propaganda. What we call choice or control is frequently curated and determined for us. True freedom lies somewhere else. And to be honest, achieving it can be more like a powerless unraveling experience of surrender, than a strong and confident enforcement of will. We’ll come back to that. 

Because I’m not simply finding some creative way of telling people what they want to hear, every conversation enters “negotiation” territory. I dislike this territory because every negotiation, at its most basic level, carries a built-in tension, an us-against-them antagonism. I’m selling something unifying yet it feels like someone has to lose. If, for example, the other person concedes, they feel a sense of loss. If they resist and hold their ground, I feel I’ve failed. If we compromise, we both walk away with less than we hoped for. With negotiation we’re always stuck in a game where at least one party leaves feeling a degree of dissatisfaction.

As if that weren’t enough, there’s also the natural emotional resistance to change itself. The Kübler-Ross Change Curve maps the familiar path from denial to acceptance. It was adapted from models of grief, which makes perfect sense. Change requires the death of something; an old belief, a habit, a self-image. And encountering death, even metaphorical death, is painful. We are built from many parts. Together, they form what we call an identity. Identities are strange things. I know I have one. But I’ve spent much of my adult life trying, in some sense, to loosen my grip on it. Identity can become our greatest obstacle. It can prevent us from truly hearing someone else’s point of view. When we defend who we are, we stop listening. Yet we feel like we’ve lost who we are if we don’t fight for it; a conundrum that must be overcome in a negotiation.
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And this brings me to music. Good music contains everything I’m trying to offer the world. But it offers it through a secret back door, without the need for negotiation. Think of the Greek myth of Orpheus. He did not argue, he played. And his music could move rocks and trees. It could soften the underworld, convincing Hades to release his love, Eurydice, not through argument, pleading, or manipulation, but simply by playing. Music doesn’t argue. It doesn’t negotiate. It doesn’t coerce. It doesn’t require a pitch deck. It just enters. It bypasses resistance. It dissolves identity. It moves us without asking permission. And when the music is good enough, there is no internal bargaining. We don’t debate whether to feel it. We simply do. In this quality it provides us a glimpse into pure freedom. Music doesn’t try to move us. It just does. And in that movement, there’s no illusion of choice, no curated options, no compromise. There is only willing participation, somehow void of will.